


The Bonds We Share (the burdens we bear)

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, bonding fic, discontinued, don't be an idiot tony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Movie!AU. Tony Stark meets Steve Rogers. He fights tooth and nail against the inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to KaisaSolstys and Kanpii for the read over! Any further mistakes are mine.

 

Tony Stark loses his virginity at the tender age of fifteen. His parents find out, as does the media and everyone is clamoring about underage sex, possible rape, and future marriage. The girl that he was so sure was going to be his bonded dumps him for a chiseled Adonis from Brazil not a month later. He had almost asked her to move in with him.

He meets Rhodey, graduates MIT, and takes lots of other people into his bed. Some of them have their virginity taken by him, but most of them have experienced sex already. He’s certain that none of them are his bonded and tosses them out into the cold when he’s done with them.

“You’re going to die from STDs one day,” Rhodey says off-handedly.

“You’re just jealous that you’re still a virgin. Aww, don’t be so shy. Hey, what if I set you up—”

Rhodey looks up, eyes sharp as knives as they meet Tony’s. “Not with one of your syphilis infected floozies. Don’t even think about it.”

When Tony sees Rhodey again after his parent’s funeral, he’s become a bit different. More responsible, down to earth, and all around more grown up. Tony feels a little part of him depress because it feels a bit like being left behind, but he still teases Rhodey mercilessly, especially when Rhodey lets it slip that he thinks he might have found someone.

“Welcome to adulthood!” Tony smirks and laughs and banters and is probably on the verge of being really, really drunk. “I see you finally put out, you miser. Tell me, how was it? Who was it? Are you bonded? Come on, no secrets among men!”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Rhodey says, a faint smile on his face, but his eyes are gentle and watching Tony’s every move. Tony knows that he’s worried.

It’s okay, Tony thinks. Just drink more. Then no one will care and everyone will be happy.

\---

He goes through multiple personal assistants because they either can’t stomach his antics or they’re not ready to handle the big, wide corporate world yet or they just want to sleep with him. After an age of searching, Pepper Potts is hired. Pepper is a good assistant—a great one really, but Tony’s a bit too drunk, a bit too insane, and a bit too reckless to help make her job easier. She stands by him through thick and thin and it crosses his mind once or twice to feel guilty, but he doesn’t.

Besides, there’s always something that needs doing, whether it be designing advanced robotics or making the arc reactor or the twins waiting for him in bed.

Rhodey continues to be his friend and eventually becomes his liaison to the military for weapons acquisition.

Obadiah Stane pulls Tony’s ass out of many metaphorical fires, but whenever he would do something phenomenally stupid, Obie would give him a very calculated look that has Tony scrambling to make things right again. He would always find himself coming up with a new something that explodes wonderfully and dump it onto R&D unannounced and then Obie would give him a giant smile, like he’s proud of Tony and the cycle would repeat.

Tony never stops bringing people into his bed, but by the time he turns thirty, he doesn’t care much to find his bonded.

\---

When Tony was young, no more than four, he had snuck into his father’s lab and started to play around with the tools there by himself. He’s fiddling around with a circuit board, thinking about making something as awesome as the Batcomputer, when a sudden terrible, horrible, lonely feeling hits him in the chest. He’s screaming and crying like the child he is for the first time in ages and when Howard comes down to the lab to fetch him, Maria on his heels, they’re both looking at each other with trepidation.

“Tony, what’s wrong?” Maria asks, petting his hair and wiping his tears and snot off of his face seemingly simultaneously.

“I don’t like this feeling,” Tony sobs, trying to bury himself deeper into his mother’s embrace. “Make it stop!”

In the evening, when the ugly, lead-heavy feeling recedes enough for Tony to concentrate, Howard and Maria very sternly explains to him about bonding even though Tony already knows the gist of it. He doesn’t want to be left alone, not at all, and normally he’d be off on his own creating his own brand of mischief, but all of a sudden he yearns—he craves—his parents’ attention. He needs something to fill up the hole in his chest, so he sits still, sandwiched between Maria and Howard, feeling mildly overheated from how close they are and holding onto both of their hands as tight as he can.

“Everyone has someone that they make a connection with. You can make lots of friends, but there’s a special person out there. Someone just for you,” Maria says. She looks at Howard and Tony’s looking at them both and then they’re looking at him again. “You won’t know right away if they are, but when you meet someone new, ask to shake their hand like this.” She unhooks Tony’s fingers from her palm and holds out her hand again. “May I shake your hand?”

“But I already know how to shake people’s hands,” Tony says and pouts. He takes her hand and digs his little fingers in again. “If I do this, will the hurting stop?”

They exchange another look over his head and before Maria can say anything, Howard speaks.

“No,” he says. “You have to find the right one.”

Maria’s lips thin, just for a moment, and runs her other hand through Tony’s hair and presses her cheek against the top of his head. “You’ll be alright, Tony,” she says. “I have faith in you.”

\---

The Iron Man armor is the best thing he’s ever made in his life. He’s always been a hands-on person and in the armor, things can’t get any more hands-on. He’s actively saving lives, helping people, making a change in a world filled with vices.

And then he’s dying.

Being killed, slowly, by the thing that’s keeping him alive; the mini-arc reactor in his chest isn’t taking well to the cores that he’s been trying out. The input isn’t equivalent to the output and the cores are corroding in his chest, poisoning him. But it’s not like he can turn it off, can he? How’s he going to break the news to Pepper? He doubts that she’ll handle it well.

On a rare, quiet night in that Pepper had vehemently decided on, she gives him this look like she knows what’s going through his head and her eyes are sad and there are wrinkles that are starting to appear on her brow from having to deal with Tony on a daily basis.

“You know, we’ve known each other a really long time,” he tells her.

She quirks an eyebrow over the tablet she’s reading from. “Yes,” she says.

“And we know each other really well. Neither of us are exactly, what’s to say, tied down. We’re both wonderful, thinking adults.”

Both her eyebrows go up this time. “Tony, I don’t think—”

“Come on, we’re the best together, we should be together.”

She shakes her head. “If this is a game, or a joke, I want you to stop it. Right now.”

“Do you not want to? Why wouldn’t you? You can have this house, the one in New York, the summer retreat in Florida, the one in India—you can go to any of them any time you want and then the plane, oh, don’t forget the cars. And the art collections.”

She throws up her hands in agitation. “No! You’re not making any sense, Tony! There’s a million things that needs to be done and I can’t know everything that’s going on. I know you’ve been acting out lately, and I trust you to tell me what’s wrong. But you’re not! You’re not telling me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me anything!”

She’s shaking and tired and overworked because it’s not easy running around after Tony, he knows that, but all he can do is smile at her and caress her cheek, fingers going over the lines that are starting to appear on her face. His responsible, fiery, wonderful Pepper.  

“Why aren’t you bonded yet?”

Pepper narrows her eyes at him and says in a waspish tone: “I’m practically running your company for you when you’re too busy playing superhero, in case you haven’t noticed. Tony, what brought this on? Are you…looking to settle down?”

She startles at Tony’s sharp bark of laughter. He wonders if he can just settle down, like she says. He’s Iron Man and he’s not likely to outlive two months, three at most. But for Pepper, for her—

He withdraws his hand and he shakes his head. “Maybe. Come on, Pep. You don’t even have to bond with me, just marry me on paper. You can plan the wedding if you want. All girls plan for their dream wedding, I can make it happen because, you know, I’m a billionaire. Then you have the ability to take away my awesome toys from me when I’m drunk or decide to turn towards villainy. It’s a win for humanity. And you. Your dream wedding.”

She stares at him for a moment, watching him carefully. He grins back and waggles his eyebrows and Pepper scoffs. “You’re impossible,” she says with a roll of her eyes. She puts her tablet down on the sofa and rises, Tony distinctly hearing several of her joints crack when she stretches. “I’m going to bed.”

He follows her all the way down the hall before he realizes she hasn’t extended an invitation to join her. Pepper, being Pepper and all-knowing and all-seeing, lets him into her room and lets him curl up against her.

“I’m not going to marry you,” she whispers into the darkness and Tony freezes. He knows that she feels him tense up, so he forces himself to relax.

“I just want the best for you,” he whispers back.

A long time later, just as he’s on the verge of unconsciousness, he hears: “I know.”

\---

The first time Tony sees Captain America—breathing and living and alive—is through CCTV footage captured of him running out of SHIELD headquarters and into the streets of New York. He is damned good looking and the shirt he wears doesn’t even begin to hide how wonderful his physique is. The pants that he wears also fantastically fails at hiding his the curve of his butt. Tony would very much like to pinch that.

The first time Tony actually meets Captain America, he laughs. He watches as Captain America turns red, his brows cast downward in a familiar, judgmental kind of way. Tony smirks from behind his designer shades. It’s almost cute, how Captain America’s embarrassed because Tony laughed at him. It’s entirely not Tony’s fault though; Captain America’s got a fantastic body, but a lousy sense of style. His clothes looks frumpy and old and so disconnected from everything around him that Tony can’t help but laugh.

“Stark, sit your ass down and shut up,” Fury scowls and Tony turns his attention to the SHIELD director.

“Is there something happening? Does the world need saving? Why is there a debrief? I’m only a consultant, so therefore, I don’t actually have to be here for all this.”

He takes a seat anyway, because Natasha’s looking like she’s ready to stab him with something that isn’t a needle.

They’re sitting at a round table and it’s not lost on Tony that it’s supposed to represent equality; there’s no head of the table, no low seat, etcetera. They are far from knights of any round table, just a conglomeration of extraordinary people. A man out of time, a scientist with anger management issues, a God stuck on earth, two SHIELD lackeys, and himself: a rich, great looking, engineering genius that has everything anyone could ever want.

“Since every single one of you are new at this, we’re going to run through some scenarios,” Fury says. “We don’t want to let you out there on your first time and take out a city block because one of you didn’t pay attention.” That look is directed solely at Tony.

“I am greatly offended by that,” Tony states. “Welp, I’ll be sitting this one out. Good luck guys, break a leg or don’t, I don’t care. I’ll see you all when there’s an actual crisis.”

“Did I say you were dismissed?” Fury asks.

It’s unreasonably difficult to refuse Fury because he’s a one-eyed bastard with a whole bunch of minions that can all probably snap Tony’s neck in their sleep, so the next day, Tony finds himself overseeing a practice run in the basement of SHIELD headquarters because, as Fury had put it, he’s the ‘goddamned consultant, so.’

Nothing goes right and the room is destroyed. Tony ends up having to bang out dents in his armor and completely redo the left gauntlet later that evening, plus he ends up footing the bill for damages even though he wasn’t the one that trashed the room in the first place. That was all the Hulk's fault. Tony had nothing to do with it.

“I heard all about it from Natasha,” Pepper says when Tony starts complaining to her about Nick Fury and his army of freaky assassins as JARVIS puts on a new coat of paint over the repaired Iron Man armor. “It was all your fault.”

“Nu-uh,” Tony protests. “Hey, whose side are you on anyway?” He does his best to look hurt, but Pepper has been with him for far too long to fall for his antics. She gives him a blank stare and touches his arm, gently.

“I’m always on your side,” she says. “Except when you’re being stupid. Now hurry up and get upstairs; Captain Rogers is here to see you.”

He ascends the stairs, taking it slowly and leisurely, earning him several looks from Pepper who’s following him up out of the lab. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Captain America—oh, he very much would like to see and touch and even possibly taste—it’s because he’s entirely unsure of how to approach the man. Everything that falls through Tony’s lips, Captain America would frown at or make a face like he’s having a difficult time digesting whatever it is that Tony’s saying. Even if they both are part of the Avengers Initiative, neither of them can be said to be friendly towards one another.

“Did he say what he’s doing here?” Tony whispers to Pepper just as he’s about to take the last step onto the landing. He stares at it for a moment, the tile gleaming so white that he can nearly make out his reflection on it.

His foot lands on the step and he turns around to look at her, a feeling of foreboding in his chest. It’s illogical, but Tony suddenly misses Pepper; he misses being able to card his hand through her hair and drop kisses onto her neck. Their relationship had been impulsive and selfish and might have been a tad unhealthy.

“Move,” Pepper says, shoving him the rest of the way up.

Captain America is in the kitchen, sitting at the island, hands clasped in front of him. His eyes flick back and forth nervously, taking in the surroundings, which is decorated to be the modernist of all modern kitchen standards. He stands immediately when he spots Tony. He and Pepper exchange nods and she excuses herself out of the kitchen, leaving the two of them alone.

“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it," Tony says first because he's not liking the look in Captain America's eyes. “Oh, look, Pepper didn’t offer you something to drink. Do you want something to drink? There’s coffee and coffee and hm, more coffee. Maybe there’s water. Which would you like?”

“She did; I declined,” Captain America says. He follows Tony to the fridge, expression set in a frown. Tony knows exactly what Captain America’s here to talk about and he really doesn’t want to have this conversation. “Mr. Stark—”

“Tony, please. I’m not that old yet.”

“Tony—”

He slams the fridge door shut, hands still empty and the fridge missing nothing in its large inventory. “You sure you don’t want anything? I’m sure Pepper would love to go get something for us or we can order something and have it brought to us. The joys of being rich.”

The last sentence causes Captain America’s lips to thin, his brows drawing down into a frustrated frown. The guy’s getting angry, Tony knows, but he can’t stop the garbage pouring out of his mouth because if he stops, then that means Captain America is going to talk and he really, really doesn’t want to hear anything about the afternoon.

“Man, aren’t you lucky. Most of the guys your age wouldn’t even be able to enjoy the technology of the modern day, you know, most of them being in old people diapers and wheelchairs—”

“Shut up.”

The two words are quiet, barely restrained; Captain America’s standing stock still, hands balled into fists at his side, but Tony doesn’t need all the visual cues. He can feel it in the air, trembling in his bones. It’s miserable.

“Excuse me? You come into my house uninvited—I was being a great host, you know, asking you if you want something to drink because that’s what great hosts do—and what are you here for, Captain? Because I have no idea why you’re here. And if you want me to shut up, you can get out. Door’s over there. JARVIS can show you out. Or Pepper. I don’t care. Door.”

Tony watches as Captain America takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. It’s a calming technique that Tony’s never been able to get work, so his fallback technique is to just word vomit his way through life. That or drink until the sobriety is gone.

“Steve,” Captain America says finally, through gritted teeth. “You should call me Steve. We’re not in costume now.” His hands are clenching and unclenching at his side, as if he doesn’t know what to do with them other than give Tony a shiner worth remembering.

“Okay, you’re Steve and I’m Tony. Should we start a comedy duo or something? I’ll tell you that I’m funny—girls love me, I’m that funny—but you, look at your face, I don’t think you’re ready.”

“I—Tony, after the practice session today—”

“Nope!” Tony practically yells. “I have stuff to do, see yourself out, Steve.”

He finds himself being picked up, his feet lifting clear off the ground, and slammed into the nearest kitchen wall nearly face first, if his hands didn’t reach out to catch himself in time. “Why are you so petty? What is wrong with you?” Steve asks, still in that quiet, restrained tone of his, even though he had just assaulted Tony in his own kitchen. “I only wanted to talk, maybe work something out, but you won’t—I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult.”

Tony, never one to care that he’s outclassed in a physical fight, retaliates.

\---

“What is wrong with you?” Pepper sighs, slapping a bandage on Tony’s cut cheek none too gently. “What happened to normal conversation? Is it too beneath you superhero types?”

“Ow,” Tony complains at the stinging of his cut, but any further complaints are silenced by the look that she gives him.

“I have spoken with Captain Rogers. He’s a very reasonable human being and he’s very nice. The only reason he’d get into a—scuffle, is probably because you goaded him into it.” At Tony’s protesting breath—he hadn’t even gotten a word out—she raises a silent, judgmental eyebrow that gets him to shut his mouth with an audible click. “Turn this way, let me see that bruise.” He does as she instructs, hearing the tiny sigh fall from her lips.

“He started it,” Tony can’t help but say.

“Tony, you’re acting out again,” Pepper says. “The last time you did this, I didn’t find out till after the whole Hammer fiasco that you were dying. Can you please not do this? Just talk to me.”

She’s switched tracks and her eyes are glassy and huge and damn it, who did she learn that from? Tony can’t stand it when she looks like that, when she looks like she’s on the verge of tears. “No, no, Pepper, stop,” he says, laying a hand on her knee, pleading for all it’s worth. He doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t even want to face the issue between him and Steve because if he gives it a name, if he confides in Pepper, it’ll be real and he can’t run away from it anymore. “This isn’t fair. Stop it.”

She sighs again, loudly this time, and shuts the first aid box. “You’re fine,” she declares, exasperated. “Now, excuse me. I need to go attend to Captain Rogers, see if you didn’t do any permanent harm.”

“What? You’re just going to up and leave me? Didn’t you say earlier that you were on my side?”

“What did I say about being stupid?”

There’s no hesitation when she gets up from the couch, no waver in her steps as she goes into the kitchen where she had effectively quarantined Captain America.

He almost wants to get up and follow her, but he stays seated. He’s tempted to tell JARVIS to play some loud, obnoxious music throughout the house, but his thoughts on revenge, no matter how minor—or as Steve had put it so gently, petty—they all go flying out of his head when Natasha strolls in from the direction of the kitchen.

“Devil woman! What are you doing here?” he does his best to not screech.

“I am Ms. Pott’s personal aide,” she says, even though that cover’s been busted ages ago and really, how is Fury letting her stay as Pepper’s PA? Natasha saunters over and settles down onto the space that Pepper vacated and she turns to face him, her face set in a thinly disguised veil of disappointment. Tony doesn't like this particular expression on her face; it reminds him too much of Pepper.

“What did you do to Steve?” she asks. Even that tone of voice is like Pepper's.

“I didn’t do anything!” Tony raises his hands up into the air in irritation. “Why is it that I’m always the bad guy? He was the one that started it!”

Natasha doesn’t look the bit impressed. “I’m sure whatever it was that you did, this was justified.”

He glares at her and she turns to look at her nails—perfectly manicured in a shade of girly red that matches her lipstick which, now that he thinks about it, isn’t that particular shade the tube he got Pepper from France? Pepper never wore it after that one time, but now that he looks, Natasha’s wearing Pepper’s lipstick.

“Oh my god, what did you do to Pepper?”

Surprisingly, Natasha laughs. “Nothing. What did you do to Steve?” she returns. “He told me himself last night that he thought you were arrogant and pompous. Out of nowhere, he now wants to talk to you so badly that he comes here? Even in his time, they have phones, so he knows how to use them. But no; it’s important. He has to see you face to face. So, what did you do to him?”

He stares at Pepper’s lipstick on Natasha’s face and thinks vicious, vicious thoughts at her, but if Pepper likes her then she can’t be that bad. And then it clicks.

“I can’t believe you,” he says. “You’re a wily weasel ninja. When did this happen? Why was I not informed?”

Natasha just smiles secretively, like the Cheshire cat, the one with a full array of sharp, pointed teeth.

“You know what, I can’t handle this. This is too much info. I need to go to my workshop and work off the stress. Of knowing.” Tony rises from his seat, half expecting her to stop him from escaping. Natasha’s staring impassively at him again and he beats a quick retreat out of there before Pepper comes back. Or worse, Captain America—Steve Rogers—comes looking for him.

\---

That night, when Tony finally climbs out of his workshop, he finds Pepper sitting on the living room couch, waiting for him even though it’s past her bed time and she’s now the CEO of Stark Industries and there’s a shareholder’s meeting in the morning. Tony’s supposed to be there too, but he’s not the CEO anymore and even when he was, he only showed when he wanted to.

“Can we talk?” she asks, voice soft and placating. She’s in pajamas and a navy blue robe that hasn’t been tied at the front. She pats at the seat beside her, waiting patiently for Tony to approach her.

He inches forward and eases himself into the seat next to her, watching her carefully for any clues. But she’s not saying anything, isn’t even letting a hint that she has the whole situation figured out. She’s Pepper Potts, the greatest PA that Tony’s ever had, the best girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, friend Tony’s ever wanted. He doesn’t doubt that she knows exactly what’s going on.

He gives in. “The only things that he liked were flying and mechanical engineering. His family didn’t even matter; as long as our lives had material comforts, it was good. He would provide the sustenance that we needed while we provided him the public image that he needed. I wanted his attention, Pepper. I wanted it so bad. The only time when we would bond or anything we’d be playing with circuit boards and hardware and that was only when I was little, before I went to boarding school.” He looks down at his hands, at all the nicks and burns and faded scars and the stubby nails with grease trapped under them—these are his father’s hands, passed down. How he simultaneously loves and hates Howard Stark.

Pepper puts her long, pale fingers over his, twining them together.

“You are not your father,” she says gently.

“I’m similar enough.”

“Tony, you’re not that kind of person. For those you care about, you don’t throw them away so easily.” She squeezes his hand, lightly. “In the end, bonding is a choice. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

He looks from her hand to her face. Her eyes are red from staying up so late and there are dark circles under her eyes, but there’s a determination sparkling from within. “You and Natasha,” he says and watches as Pepper’s ears turn an interesting shade of pink. “She was wearing the lipstick I got you. I didn’t kiss her! I just looked, I swear. Besides, if I did and I’m not saying that I want to, she’d probably rip my balls off and I’m quite attached to them, thanks.”

“You,” Pepper says with a fond sigh. She squeezes his hand lightly. “We didn’t know. Not at first, anyway. But one day, I dropped a bunch of papers on the floor and she was helping me pick them up. Stop laughing, Tony, I’m serious—our hands touched and there was this…connection. We didn’t know what to do because neither of us thought we’d ever find that certain someone. We avoided each other for as much as we could for a week before we tried anything.”

Tony starts laughing again because he can hardly imagine Natasha afraid of running into Pepper in the halls at Stark International. He’s going over the security feeds to find footage of that, just for kicks. “Wait, and then what did you try? I need to know. For research’s sake.”

Pepper smacks him in the arm. “Coffee. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

He stares at her incredulously. “That worked?”

“Sometimes, a simple approach is best,” Pepper says sagely.

“Sorry, I still can’t get over how romcom your getting together story is.”

Pepper smiles and he should have anticipated the question and should have run when he had the chance, but she opens her mouth and asks; “What about you and Steve?”

He slowly dislodges his hand from hers and shakes his head. “I don’t want to. I don’t—how the heck is he supposed to be bonded with me? That man is Captain America, loved by one and all and we are complete opposites of each other. He doesn’t know what the Watergate Scandal is. He’s never seen Star Wars. He doesn’t even know what Facebook is! Plus, I swear Pepper, he hates me.”

She gives him a leveled look and upon reaching whatever judgment she’s made, she nods. “Try talking to him first,” she advises. “Take him for some coffee. And then if you still don’t want to, to whatever it is, you need to tell him. Don’t leave him in the dark. And then, after you know him and you still think that way, and he doesn’t take no for an answer or does something to you that you don’t want, tell me. I will kick his ass to next Sunday and then some.”

Tony smiles then, but keeps his hands to himself because he remembers now that she’s with Natasha. He tries to imagine Pepper beating up Steve and it’s so improbable that he laughs. “I’ll use a doll and show you all the bad places he touched me,” he tells her, his voice coming out a bit more gravelly than intended.

“That’s a promise. Now get to bed, it’s nearly five and there’s a stockholder’s meeting in four hours. And we are both going.” Her tone of voice booked no arguments.

\---

Nothing particularly interesting happens the next time Tony meets Captain America. They’re both being glared down at by Agent Maria Hill, even though she’s just barely taller than Tony and she’s sitting behind a desk while they’re standing. It’s all because Nick Fury is a Busy Man and is above trying to play peacemaker. Despite sharing a name with his mother, Tony finds that this Maria’s death glare is quite impressive and he’s been on the receiving end of many over the years. Steve is looking thoroughly chastised.

“I got a very interesting report from Agent Romanov,” Maria says, all clipped tones and hard edges. She’s staring at Tony’s face, which still has all the scrapes and cuts from the tussle he and Steve got into earlier in the week. He had tried to get Pepper to help him disguise it with make-up, but she was too mired in CEO duties to help. “And if you two cannot play nice with each other, you will both be taken off the Avengers Initiative.”

“Now that’s not fair—” Tony starts, but is stopped when Maria makes a motion for the gun holstered on her hip. She is definitely a no-nonsense type of person; no wonder she’s Fury’s right hand man. Woman. She could definitely break many men, from the pathetic looks Steve is sending her. Tony may have also hid behind the first available meat shield, which was Steve. Instead of bringing up a gun however, she’s holding a pen in her hand. It’s most likely a very deadly pen.

“We are dealing with things that are bigger than either of you. Get your act together. I’m not telling you to be best friends, I’m telling you to be teammates.”

“Yeah, well, this team sucks and I already have a best friend—”

“Another word, Stark, and you’re off. Permanently.” She gives them both a stern look and then points to the door. “Go work something out. I don’t care if you fight or kill each other on your off time, but if you so much as step on each other’s toes on Avengers time, you will both be off.”

They both stare at her for a bit, both waiting for something else, for her to talk to them about bonding or something, but none of that comes. Natasha must not have told her about it, Tony thinks, or maybe Natasha doesn’t know, though he doubts it. Pepper seems to like blabbing things to Natasha.

“Is that all?” Tony ventures.

“Should there be anything else?” Maria counters. “Get out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve says, the only words he’s said since entering Maria’s office, and he quickly files out.

Tony lingers at the door. “Just so you know, I’ve been doing the Iron Man jig solo for a while and that worked out great for me. That assessment that your little spider did? Mostly inaccurate, but I really don’t play well with others.”

Maria quirks an eyebrow at him. “Everywhere you go, you make a mess that needs to be cleaned up. If it isn’t us doing the cleaning, it’s Miss Potts or your best friend Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes. How is that working out for you so far?”

He twitches at the statement and looks over at Steve, standing in the hallway, trying his hardest to seem like he’s not listening in on the conversation. “Great,” Tony says. “Just great. Hey, you. Yeah, you, Steve. Let’s go for a drink and then come up with some sort of compromising bullshit to please the masters above.”

Steve stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “Why?” He sounds so hesitant, so hopeful, that Tony wants to call the whole thing off. Maybe he can go start his own superhero team instead, he can ask Rhodey to join and maybe that red and blue guy with the webs and whomever else that SHIELD or the X-men didn’t have dibs on.

“It’s etiquette. When you’re compromising or drawing up a contract, drinks are involved. Come on, Uncle Sam, let’s get going. Aren’t you lucky that you know me, since you’re looking at the only guy in New York that can foot Thor’s drinking tab.”

\---

It takes a hell of a lot of clearance to take Steve out of SHIELD headquarters, but Tony just waltzes him out the back door and into a waiting car. He has no doubt that he has less than ten minutes to get as far away as possible before SHIELD is on their tail, but he takes his time. He doesn’t ask Happy to go faster or anything, just get them to a place with alcohol and lots of it.

The ride is awkward and silent. Tony is too busy sizing up Steve and Steve is staring just as warily back. Even Happy is giving them looks through the rear view mirror.

Happy drops them off at a ritzy place in downtown where the drinks are definitely going to be expensive and where Steve is pathetically underdressed for. Even though parking is hell outside, the inside is quiet with only sprinkles of people in its luxurious confines.

“Here?” Steve asks, brows furrowing and looking generally terrified.

“Yup, here.” Tony strides over to the bar, leaving Steve to catch up with him or get left behind. “Two scotches, on the rocks,” he tells the bartender who nods with a placid smile.

“This place is…” Steve waves a hand at everything, looking a bit like he’s flailing, but Tony shrugs.

“Pretentious?” he supplies, watching as Steve dart a nervous glance at the bartender. “I like this place. The more schmoozy it is, the more they kiss your ass when they realize you can give a tip that’s more than three digits.”

“Tony—”

“No, not yet. Drinks! Drinks are good. Here, drink.” He sets the second glass of scotch in front of Steve. He drains his easily with long practiced ease, relishing in the slow, cool burn of the alcohol at the back of his throat and motions for a refill. He already knows that he’s probably going to get fantastically drunk, but maybe he’ll get so drunk, he’ll black out. Steve’s watching him with wide eyes and a genuine look of shock when he gets the refill.

“Tony, I think you’re drinking yours too fast. You need to slow down,” Steve says, his hand clenched around his own glass, knuckles white as a sheet. It’s a miracle it hasn’t cracked yet under the pressure that he’s exerting on it and Tony should know how much strength is in those hands—he still has bruises smarting from that row they had in the kitchen.

“Drink,” Tony commands. Steve looks confused for a moment. “Drink.”

Still looking very confused, Steve raises his glass to his lips and imitates Tony in drinking it—he ends up in a coughing fit, not used to drinking alcohol like Tony is used to.

“Great,” Tony says and sends the glass back to the bartender, which gets filled up immediately. “Here, drink more.”

“I can’t get drunk,” Steve says over the hacking. “I’m not—I can’t.” He coughs again, almost violently, and then stops. “What are we doing?”

“Drinking. And then, if you want, we can go and order food. If you haven’t eaten yet—because I haven’t—there was a meeting today that everyone in the engineering department had to go to and then Agent Hill called and then there’s this. My life is very busy. I’m sure yours is too, being stuck in SHIELD all day.”

“You’re drinking on an empty stomach?”

“We do this my way or not at all and my way is this way.”

“Okay—okay, just. Let’s go sit down at the booths. We’ll get all the drinks you want.” Steve is surprisingly gentle when he pushes Tony away from the bar and towards the giant, cushioned seats of the booths, one that’s cleverly hidden away from prying eyes. They settle into it, the leather squeaking, and Tony’s glaring down at his glass tumbler like it has all the secrets in the world. It does, actually, but only when he’s consumed enough.

Tony babbles at length about everything that he can, which is easy because he has a lot of thoughts and Steve listens, sipping slowly at his drink even though Tony is going through his like water. He’s fairly sure that Steve’s only half listening anyway, just waiting for him to work up the courage to talk about…whatever it is that Maria wants them to talk about. He can’t even remember.

“Give me your hand,” he demands and Steve startles. “Come on, your hand. Or a pinky, I don’t care, I’m not picky.” He holds out his own pinky and waggles it at Steve’s direction on the table, earning him a soft snort of amusement.

Steve stares a bit, hesitant, and then he reaches out, slowly. He lays two fingers over Tony’s pinky and then closes his eyes with a whole bodied shudder. Tony can feel that jolt of electricity that he felt the other day, when their bare skins touched on accident when Steve had offered him a handshake in a friendly gesture that had shocked the both of them into silence. Something warm and calm drives away the cacophony of his mind, every fiber of his body screaming at him that it’s right—wrong—right.

Steve pulls away first, though his shoulders drooping slightly in disappointment.

“Where the hell were you?” The question pops out so quickly from Tony’s mouth that it takes a while for his brain to catch up with the conversation.

Steve frowns and then, to Tony’s surprise, speaks. “And where were you when I needed you?” He looks up at Tony then, his blue eyes blazing and Tony hides behind his tumbler from the intensity.

“I don’t—I don’t want to,” Tony mutters.

Steve doesn’t seem shocked at all at Tony’s admission. “Alright,” he says. “I don’t think I understand, but I can respect that.”

There’s a long, long lull in their conversation, of which both Tony and Steve stare down into their diminishing alcohol. “You’re a real hero, Cap,” Tony says finally and Steve sighs.

“Can we at least have some sort of truce? You’ll stop it with the smarmy comments and, and I won’t try to punch you again.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine with that, the no punching part, I don’t know if I can keep all my comments to myself. It’s part of my charm, you know. I’m very charming.”

“I’m sure you are,” Steve says. He sounds terribly resigned and he finishes the scotch in his glass.

\---

“Rhodey! Rhodey, Rhodey, Rhodey—”

“I missed you too,” Rhodey says when Tony wraps his octopus arms around him, returning the hug with an arm and a firm pat on the back. “What’s this I hear about you being drafted into a superhero group?”

“Yeah, it sucks,” Tony says as Rhodey starts to disentangle himself; he firmly yanks at Tony’s grabby hands and shoves them back to Tony’s side. “It totally sucks. Do you remember Natalie Rushman? The crazy ninja chick that’s sleeping with Pepper?”

Rhodey raises an eyebrow, but hardly looks surprised. “What about her?” he asks and Tony openly gapes at him.

“You knew? How did you know? How long? Why is it that you know before me? Impossible.”

“I’ve known since the beginning. In case you don’t remember, we were the ones running around after you. We all thought you finally cracked and went crazy.” Rhodey makes a beeline straight to the bar in Tony’s kitchen and then frowns when he notices that one of the cabinet doors is left hanging onto one hinge. “What happened here?”

Tony waves it off. “Nothing. So what happened to my suit? I notice that you’re not wearing it, so I sure as hell hope that means it’s not out there all alone and uncared for in the world.”

“My suit,” Rhodey says, successfully derailed. “I got a message from Pepper—”

He doesn’t understand why people are intervening. Tony doesn’t exactly want to bond with anyone, not when he’s Iron Man and Tony Stark and even if it is to Captain America, he doesn’t exactly want to be tied down. The last time he was serious about anyone, it had been Pepper and well, look at where she is now. So no; no bonding, no partners, nothing. His one and only love will be his armor, which it already pretty much is, and alcohol.

He loves alcohol just a little less than his armor, but it’s still high up on his list of loves.

“—saying that you got into a fight?”

Tony grunts something that might or might not be an affirmative and reaches past Rhodey at the bar for the nearest bottle of whatever, grabs two glasses, and pours them some sweet, liquid goodness. He’s barely registering anything that Rhodey’s saying until he’s pouring himself a second and then he tunes back in, the world abruptly sharp with clarity.

“—careful, you’re like the most useless person in a fight outside of the armor—”

“I resent that,” Tony says on principle, wondering why he’s feeling like he’s being torn in half, a deep empty ache in the depths of his already hollow chest that he hasn’t felt since childhood.

Rhodey’s giving him a hard look, frowning, expression unreadable. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He sets his glass down, half filled, and wanders out of the kitchen, Rhodey following him all the way down to the workshop, where the feeling begins to recede just a bit.

“Tony, what was that all about?” he asks when Tony manages to blink out of his stupor.

“Yeah, you know how Pepper and robot-ninja-assassin are going out? I think they just bonded.”

Rhodey gives him another look, filled with suspicion. “How do you know that? You couldn’t unless—jeez, Tony, don’t tell me that you tried it with her?” His voice is softer now and his gaze is less intense and more sympathetic.

His heart had been broken, metaphorically and physically, ages and ages ago, but it never seems to stop that empty feeling in his chest, leaking down into the pits of his belly and extending to his shaking fingers. “I was optimistic. Pepper went along with it.”

Rhodey just sighs and claps him on the shoulder. “You’re a piece of work, Tony.”

Tony smiles and stares at his hall of armors. “Yeah. The best.”

\---

They’re in the middle of a sortie when he sees Natasha being dropped off in a SHIELD van. She doesn’t look any different; still the same shoulder length red hair and deadly assassin stride. Nothing betrays the fact that she’s bonded with Pepper now.

They’re fighting against giant blob-goo monsters—possibly from space—in the middle of Brooklyn; the streets are empty, littered with evacuated vehicles. Whoever didn’t run at the first sight of the purple blobs had to be evacuated by SHIELD, and mostly those were the people in the high-rise buildings. The last of the helicopters had left just some five minutes ago.

“Nice to see you join us, Widow,” Clint’s voice crackles over their communications line. He’s somewhere up high, shooting uselessly at blobs as they tried to climb up the buildings. So far, only the explosive arrows seem to do any sort of damage against them and Tony’s busy firing repulsor blast after repulsor blast at them. They would always fall back with a screech—his thoughts were a swirl of ‘where the heck are their vocal chords, where the heck is the sound even coming from, their bodies are opaque and they’re like giant globby purple slugs, what is that a purple tentacle, oh shit’—and then they would try to swat Tony out of the air with a limb that grows out of nowhere and would retract back into their bodies.

Captain America—Steve’s on a motorcycle with as much firepower as the Iron Man, gunning through the streets and leading some of the blobs on a chase. They’re strangely quick for goo, which is ridiculous. Hulk is doing some sort of circus act around the taller buildings, dropping down with all the fury and weight of a two ton green monster onto the goo, which splatters instantly on impact, but coalesces again in less than a minute.

“Where’s Thor?” Natasha growls; she’s strapping something onto her back and holy shit—Tony has to stop and stare because damn, that is the biggest, baddest flame thrower he’s ever seen. He needs one. Maybe he can build one into his armor or see if Rhodey wants one for the War Machine.

“Don’t pause!” Clint squeals and Tony catches sight of a figure diving off of a building that’s being molested by goo.

“A warning next time!” Tony snaps and manages to catch Clint before he turned into a smear on the sidewalk. He drops Clint off next to Natasha, who’s probably going to grille him for lunch or something after the goo.

“Thor’s in Arizona,” Steve says. “Do we have some ideas on how to defeat these things?”

“They’re hurt by heat,” Clint says. “Hey, I have a joke—”

There’s a collective groan over the line and Natasha going; “Never is the right time for your jokes.”

“Hey! My jokes are genius, I’ll have you know. They’re as genius as Stark is with his flying doll.”

“No, your jokes suck as much as your old-ass weapons. Go back to the stone age!” Tony says, dodging a blow from one of the goo. A small blip shows up on his internal HUD and it takes him a moment to figure out what it is. “Cap, where are you going? You’re heading pretty far out there.”

“We need to get them away from the city,” comes the reply. There’s static on the air and that’s horrible; it’s wrecking Tony’s ears just listening to that. “There’s too much potential for collateral damage.”

“What? How far are you going to go? Whatever we break, we can just rebuild—”

“No,” Steve says. “No, these are people’s homes and their lives, you can’t just take it away from them because of—”

“That’s why we’ll build it again—”

“You can’t just rebuild something like that—”

“Oh my god,” Clint moans. “Why are you even arguing? It’s the invasion of Flubber’s estranged cousin and you’re arguing.”

“They’re children,” Natasha says and even though Tony can’t see her face, he can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Captain. We’ll try herding them out.”

There’s a pause over the link and then Steve says, kind of breathlessly; “Thank you.”

They’re there for nearly an hour, driving the goo out of the heart of Brooklyn. They manage to get them into a deserted park, but when they all get there, the goo starts to merge together and into a giant—

“Holy shit,” Tony gasps.

“It’s a giant, purple Pillsbury Dough Boy.” Clint clasps a hand over his heart dramatically. “All my dreams are coming true.”

“You have some disturbing dreams that I never want to know about,” Tony quips, wondering if he should accidentally glide over Clint’s head with his jet boots. Not to burn him, just enough to sizzle his hair a little.

Hulk roars at it and charges, grabbing and digging his giant fingers into its jelly-like body, and tearing out chunks of it like it’s nothing. It probably is nothing, since he’s just plowing through the things calves despite the purple goo-dough boy trying to wrench him free.

“Got your back!” Clint yells, letting out a volley of arrows. Each one explodes as it touches down on its target, forcing the goo to recoil and Tony follows up on it, abandoning his plan on barbecuing Clint and instead sending repulsor blasts at where the goo’s eyes are. He’s not even sure if the thing sees for sure.

It falls once its feet are literally taken out from under it.

“How do we kill it?” Clint asks. “I don’t think we have a frying pan big enough.”

“Uh, maybe we can just dump it in SHIELD, like on Fury’s desk or something and he’ll take care of it,” Tony says. He'll probably need to set fire to it; it's strange that possibly from space goo would have a weakness to fire. Then again, fire is easily one of the most feared force of nature in the world. 

“Ho, friends! How goes the tides of battle?” A booming voice from up high yells out.

“Thor!” Clint practically screams in girlish delight. “Just the man we need!”

Thor saves the day with several giant clashes of lightning called from the sky and SHIELD carts off the remains of the Pillsbury dough boy in many giant black vans that aren’t inconspicuous at all and Maria stomps over to the team, lips pursed. She hands over a shirt to Bruce, who’s reverted back to his nerdy self, and he takes it gratefully. Then she goes straight on back to glaring at the team.

“Hey, we did good—” Tony starts, but Maria cuts him off.

“Two hours and three minutes,” she says. “That’s how long it took you guys to take this thing down. We left you to your own devices and didn’t interfere because we wanted to see how you’d function in a situation that isn’t training. Congratulations, gentlemen, lady. Welcome to the Avengers Initiative; you’re all officially on.”

“Uh,” Bruce says and Tony rather shares the sentiment, though Thor is looking quite pleased with himself, as is Natasha and Clint.

Tony’s just glancing around at his teammates—damn, is that weird, he has a team—and ends up meeting Steve’s gaze.

“Hurray,” Tony says half-heartedly. It’s not the first time that he’s thankful for the helmet; he really doesn’t want anyone to see his face right at the moment and he doesn’t really want to see Steve’s face at all. “That’s great, that’s wonderful, great job to us. Since the big blobby thing is being taken away to some crazy SHIELD scientist, and I have zero interest in stuff here, I’m out.” He turns off the communications system and doesn’t even wait for a response before blasting off into the sky.

\---

It’s two in the morning when JARVIS announces that he has a phone call over his private line. Not very many people have the number and most people that do call Pepper first anyway because it’s common knowledge that Tony doesn’t like to pick up. He’s half working on the armor and half spinning circles in his chair; he’s too keyed up to work, but he doesn’t want to go out. Effectively, he is bored and wondering if he should go take the newest version of the Iron Man for a test spin.

“Bring it,” he tells JARVIS, who puts him on speaker.

First thing that he hears is the loud, booming bass notes of something that is obviously from Clint’s iPod. Then, he hears Clint.

“Where are you?”

“Being awesome in the land of awesomeness. Why are you calling me? Are you drunk?”

“Noooo,” Clint says convincingly. “I’m not drunk. Why aren’t you here? I need to tell you that I love you. I love your armor. It’s shiny and I miss it. Cap! I love you. You’re the—” Whatever he was going to say is garbled as someone wrestles the phone from him, most likely Steve.

“Hello?” And that is definitely Steve’s voice coming from the other end. “Er, hi, sorry. Clint’s drunk.”

Tony’s torn between asking why is Clint drunk and why is he not invited to that little shindig when he remembers that he doesn’t like sharing the superhero tasks with the rest of them and so far, he doesn’t actually like any of them either, with probably the exception of Clint since the guy just confessed to loving the armor.

“Yeah, I got that,” Tony says, spinning around in his chair.

There’s a long pause and Tony knows that Steve hasn’t hung up yet because he can still hear the stupid music in the background.

“Tony?”

He rolls his eyes. “Ding, ding! Congratulations, you’ve won a million dollars. Why was I not invited? There’s drinks and drunk people, sounds like my kind of thing, less yours, grandpa.”

“I don’t want your money,” Steve says slowly. In the background, Tony can hear Clint yelling about how peace and love makes the world go round. “Um, look, things are getting really out of hand right now, I’ll talk to you later.”

He doesn’t even know why he’s feeling disappointed, but he is. “Yeah, sure. Later,” he says and cuts the line.

He finishes working on the upgrades and takes the armor out for a spin, going as fast and as high up as he can. He calls up Rhodey with an invite, knowing the Grump Meister’s just going to yell at him for it, and he’s not wrong when Rhodey gives him an earful of choice words about joyrides at three in the morning.

“But, but it’s the armor. It’s better than anything the world currently has. Except for coffee. Coffee’s the best. But my armor’s up there too. Hey, what do you think about an armor that can make coffee?”

“Get some sleep, Tony,” Rhodey says and hangs up.

He doesn’t want to sleep, not really. He wants to do something crazy and irrational and not go to bed where he’ll think about Pepper or Steve—where’s a supervillain when he needs one? Maybe there’s a robbery or something that’s going down in some shady areas of the city. He should make a black colored suit just so he can go “I am vengeance! I am the night!” and proceed to scare the crap out of people.

When he’s finally feeling the pull of sleep, he drops onto the Statue of Liberty’s head and finds a good spot to lie down on. There are no stars in the sky and the moon is nowhere to be seen. In the distance, his suit is picking up signals from airplanes and ships. He doesn’t hear the busy honking of traffic yet, but there are still cars on the road, zipping by faster than the speed limit allows because it’s New York and its population is perpetually awake. He ignores it all. “Wake me up some time soon, JARVIS,” he commands.

“Yes, sir,” comes the response. “I’ll set the internal alarm systems for then, shall I?”

\---

“Hello!” Tony says, putting as much cheer as he can into the word. The impromptu Avengers get-together at a quarter till ten is turning out far better than Tony had hoped; he had thought that no one would be awake, but everyone’s in the cafeteria nursing a cup of much needed caffeine. With the exception of Thor, they all seemed to be in various states of a hangover. Surprisingly, even Steve seems to be in a dour mood.

“Asgardian mead is not to be taken lightly,” Thor booms proudly when he catches Tony giving Steve an incredulous look.

“We’re lucky nobody got alcohol poisoning last night,” Steve says, disapproving frown directed at Thor.

Bruce just makes a pained noise, head held in his hands. Clint mimics him on the other side of the table, and tries to scrunch up into a ball, probably remembering the previous night’s events. Tony smiles widely and moves over to sit next to him. “Clint! My favorite buddy, old boy, old pal—”

“Shut it,” Clint mutters without any conviction. He doesn’t even attempt to move away from Tony.

“You love me! You love the armor, you told me so yourself. Remember that call last night? I remember it in stunning clarity, let me say—”

Clint looks up at Steve at that, squinting his eyes in a pathetic attempt at a glare. “I thought you took my phone away.”

“He did, after you called me,” Tony says before Steve can speak up. “Hey, did you know that the conversation’s recorded? I can play it back if you want.”

“Please, don’t.”

“Thor!”

Tony looks up to see four Asgardians walk into the SHIELD cafeteria, each of them completely different from one another. The dark haired woman of the group smiles upon seeing them at one of the long tables and Tony can’t help but smile back, but instantly realizes that she’s not looking at him, rather, she’s directing her smile at Steve. Steve, who had previously looked so glum, starts to perk up and smiles back. He’s obviously pleased about something.

“Good morning!” Thor greets, waving his friends over.

“Indeed,” says the blond Asgardian that reminds Tony a bit strangely of a very dandy version of Robin Hood. “A few drinks are best accompanied by a good night’s sleep.”

“Whoa, whoa, Clint,” Tony whispers, leaning over into Clint’s personal space. “What’s going on here, tell me, I need to know.”

“Thor’s friends,” Clint grunts. “They brought the drinks. Stop bothering me.”

“But you love me, I’m never going to let you forget that,” Tony says, eyes darting from Steve to the woman. “Now tell me what’s going on between Steve and Xena over there.”

“They slept together or something,” says Clint. “Let go of my arm.”

“No, that’s not true, Steve doesn’t put so easily like you. Come on, the truth. I need the truth!”

Clint moans. “If I tell you, you’ll go away?” Tony nods vehemently and Clint whispers back; “She’s Sif. Last I remember, they were making out. I don’t think she’ll go for a namby-pamby kind of guy like you though, so good luck with that. Now shoo. Let me die in peace.”

Tony claps Clint heartily on the back, probably with more force than he should have, but hey, Clint’s a secret ninja warrior like Natasha. “You’ll live.”

Before Sif can grab the empty seat by Steve, Tony plops down onto it with all the suave he can muster. “Steve,” he says evenly and Steve stares at him like he’s grown a second head.

“Yes?” he asks, as the Asgardians take a seat at the table with them. Thor’s rambling about the wonderful Midgardian invention that is coffee and Tony would very much like to join that conversation, but something else is more important.

“Oh wow, is that a hickey?” Tony’s staring at a deep purple bruise at the base of Steve’s neck and moves in closer deliberately when Steve tries to hide it under his hoodie. “You’ve been busy, really, I can tell. Sleep with anyone lately? Is Thor’s friend’s the lucky girl?”

Steve’s face does its best to imitate a tomato and he’s clinging to the front of his hoodie with a death grip. Despite all this, his eyes are defiant and irritated. It seems that whenever Tony’s talking to him, that’s the only emotion he gets out of the guy: anger, irritation, and any other iterations of the word.

“I—”

Natasha, sitting on the other side of the table, knocks over her rather full coffee cup, sending the hot liquid careening towards Tony and Steve’s side of the table.

“Ow!” Tony yelps, scrambling out of his seat as quick as he can and nearly losing his balance. Steve had also shot up and reached for Tony to steady him out of instinct when Steve’s hand accidentally brushes across his wrist.

This is the third time that they’ve touched, but it’s no less electrifying for Tony. If his blood could sing, they’d be doing a rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth; he can’t remember why he had said no the other day, when they’re both single and Tony desperately wants to be wanted and needed. And Steve, all alone in this new world, maybe he would like someone to be at his side.

Tony pulls back slowly and Steve’s not quite glaring at him, though he’s lost the edge he previously had and there’s no real anger in his eyes. Instead, he redirects his stare to Natasha.

“Oops,” she says sounding entirely too innocent. “Wasn’t looking.” And with spidery fingers, she picks up her cup and rights it on the table. She tosses some napkins over to them. “Here, clean up the coffee before it spills onto the floor.”

Steve’s still frowning, but he doesn’t say anything and he casts another look over in Tony’s direction before wiping down the table with the napkins.

“Ew, the table’s sticky,” Tony says and that breaks the strange silence that’s fallen upon everyone.

“It is the most curious thing! The way to get another on Midgard, you simply ask! You use the same cup and the Midgardians will procure more of the delicious coffee into it!” Thor says. “Jane and Darcy were quite the teachers.”

“Really,” Sif says, almost dryly. “Such a wonderful discovery you made. You know it’s a custom in Asgard as well? Breaking goblets is only something you do.”

“No,” Thor says, shocked, turning to stare at the other Asgardians, eyes wide. “Volstagg! Fandral! Hogun!”

Fandral, the blond, shrugs and nods his head at Natasha. “Such uncouthness in the presence of ladies? Never.”

Hogun says nothing, shaking his head, and continues to take little sips from his cup. Volstagg just laughs from behind the cup of coffee he’s holding, looking anywhere but at Thor. “We indulge you too much, my friend,” he says.

Meanwhile, Sif’s staring at Steve and Steve’s staring back and Tony really, really wishes there’s a super villain attack right about now. The alarm doesn’t go off, there’s no sudden earthquake or tsunami or hurricane, no disaster of any kind, and he doesn’t want to sit through this, this eye-stripping thing they’ve got going on between them, but all of a sudden, Steve drops his gaze. Sif’s back is ramrod straight and her lips quirked into a small smile that isn’t directed at Steve, but rather at Tony.

“He had looked forlorn and miserable. I had only wanted to make him smile,” she says. “I apologize; I had not realized he is your intended.”

Steve’s blush is back with a vengeance, the red racing to the tip of his hair line and Bruce spews coffee across the table. Tony feels his eyebrows rising.

“Bruce! Friend, are you well?” Thor asks worriedly.

“Yuck,” says Clint, who caught the brunt of the attack. Natasha tosses some napkins in his direction, a smug, satisfied smile on her face. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I miscalculated the length of this fic; there is 3 parts instead of 2. Any mistakes spotted in here is mine. Anyway, enjoy!

It’s another day with the Avengers, saving the East Coast from destruction against a clan of witches.

The witches are old looking crones, but fast—there’s four of them and they fly on brooms and somehow, they’re matching Tony and Thor for speed up in the air even though that shouldn’t be humanly possible. Normal people would be rendered unconscious. The rest of the team are grounded on the Helicarrier and can’t do much, since the witches are zipping around the skyscrapers, and they can’t bring in the Quinjet or any flight capable vehicles due to the tiny airspace. It’s not like they have anything that’s fast enough and maneuverable enough anyway.

“Incoming! Six o’ clock!” Tony hears over the comm and jets upward in one fluid motion, dodging a bright ball of crackling light. He had been scraped by one on the shin earlier and it had actually melted the spot it touched. His suit is made to withstand extreme temperatures and pressure—the stupid light had actually melted the suit. Melted.

Tony hates magic.

“This is a cowardly way of battle!” Thor booms angrily. He’s deflecting everything the witches throw at him by using Mjolnir as a bat. “I demand that you come face me properly!”

“Tony, can you lure them?” Steve asks. “Maybe we can set up a perimeter and try to catch them.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I mean, they totally didn’t melt my armor which was made to be unmeltable by normal means. Catching them sounds like a great idea,” Tony snaps as he shoots off several small homing missiles at them. It’s totally overkill, but for damaging his precious baby, they deserve it.

None of them actually manages to hit their target right on, but one of the missiles manages to nick the tail end of one of their brooms, sending that witch careening into the sky where Thor’s raging away. The sky is unusually cloudy for a midafternoon, making it even more difficult to track the witches visually. The Iron Man’s visual lock-on is already almost useless with all of New York’s giant buildings in the way.

“Drop!” Steve’s voice yells in his ear and Tony immediately obeys, dropping straight down just in time to duck a witch flying his way with a lightning ball.

“Jesus, where the heck are you even watching me from?” Tony asks. “I feel like I’m being peeped on here.” He hadn’t really been expecting an answer, especially not—

“Bank of America Tower,” says Steve. “Can you contact Thor? He hasn’t been answering his comm in a while.”

Tony nearly flips out in the middle of his flight, just barely dodging another lightning ball. He can hear the armor fizzling away in certain parts, but he’s ignoring it and scanning the rooftops for Steve. Not even a block away, at the top of Bank of America Tower, dressed in his Captain America costume and peering into the sky, is Steve, standing there like an idiot with a bullseye on his back.

“Are you stupid? Did the ice freeze your brains? Get out of there!”

He immediately changes trajectory and zooms for Steve, who had already become a target of a witch with a broom that smoked like a BBQ pit.

“No, don’t!” Steve yells, holding up a hand.

It’s too late.

Tony takes a full hit in the shoulder from the lightning ball. He’s pushing forward as fast as he can, for as long as his armor will let him, even though JARVIS is giving him updates on how badly some of the connectors in the shoulder are fried. The witch shrieks and tries to fly higher up into the sky, but she’s a hair too slow. Tony bodily crashes into her and damn, that’s enough to make Tony wince, because he knows how heavy his suit is, but hey, if the witches can survive going at sonic speeds without protection, they’ll probably survive crashing into his suit.

The witch screeches something incoherent to Tony’s ears and all of a sudden, his suit system locks down.

He can hear the other Avengers yelling his name over the comm, but it’s all just background noise when JARVIS announces that the connectors in the chest area have been melted.

“It appears we are falling, sir,” JARVIS tacks on to the end of his announcement.

“Yeah, I noticed! JARVIS, override and reboot!” Tony yells, trying to stabilize himself with just the boots, but with the system locked down and unresponsive, there isn’t much that can be done. He’s plummeting downward, with a witch that just melted the front of his armor, and all he can see flashing across his eyes is Steve’s disappointed face. Better that than a dead Steve.

There’s a woosh of repulsor jets and something solid slams into him, stopping his thousand-something feet drop onto concrete.

“Damn it, why is your head full of stupid,” Rhodey says through their private line and Tony laughs.

Rhodey. Good old Rhodey, so dependable. Rhodey is a godsend. “It’s lovely seeing you too. I can see that you’ve been taking care of my suit.”

“Tony, focus! Dropping you off—is that Captain America?”

“Yup, that it is. Drop me off next to him and make sure my package doesn’t get away. It’s getting slippery.”

The witch is crushed against his chest, her arms pinned against the melted armor. Her skin there is red and blistering, but Tony didn’t hear her scream in pain even once. Her beady black eyes swiveled from the War Machine to Iron Man and then finally to Captain America when they landed on top of the tower. Luckily, his system managed to reboot before Rhodey could dump him on his bum so he manages a little hop-skip as they land.

“Hey, Steve! I caught one!”

The answering silence is unexpected. Steve’s expression is stony; his nostrils are flared and his lips are pressed into a thin, white line. It’s hard to tell if that expression is directed at the witch or at Tony. Probably the both of them.

“That was stupid,” Natasha admonishes him over the comm. “Now get out of the line of fire and patch Rhodes into the Avengers link.”

“What? Why? I thought I was your epic battle suit guy.”

“Your suit’s damaged. We need more fliers up there; Thor can’t handle it all himself.”

Tony looks up into the sky to see Thor being surrounded by the rest of the witches, twisting and turning through the air. It seems that they’ve figured if they could take Thor down, they would pretty much have the Avengers beat. They’re streaking around in the sky, just blurs that are almost indiscernible from each other, if not for Thor’s bright red cape. Meanwhile, they sky has darkened so much that it looks like it’s about to storm.

“He really is the god of thunder,” Tony says mildly the same time that Rhodey blasts off from the roof to join the fray. The damage reports from JARVIS are making Tony feel a headache coming on.

“You have been causing a great deal of disturbance and harm onto upstanding citizens of New York,” Steve says and Tony turns his attention back to him. It takes him a moment to realize that Steve’s not talking to him, but to the witch. The witch just narrows her eyes at him and turns her attention back to Tony.

“I will destroy you, all of you!” she screeches and her hands light up again. JARVIS immediately unlocks all of the armor from around him, letting it fall in pieces to the ground just as Steve tackles him, his shield drawn up to protect them from the blast. Light and fire explode all around them, Steve holding Tony close and tight enough that getting air into his lungs is difficult. Pieces of the Iron Man goes flying in hissing, wet splotches while other parts of it is charred, crashing to the ground with sparking connectors and wires.

“Shit,” Tony says into Steve’s chest. His outfit presses against Tony’s cheek uncomfortably, the material made of some strange mix of Kevlar and really dense synthetic fibers.

The bulk of the armor is collapsed and melted on top of the witch, effectively pinning her in place. Half her face is covered, but Tony can hear her muffled curses and he can see her flailing about, trying to get up off the ground. Trapped by her own spell. Tony can definitely see the irony in that.

“Are you okay?”

Steve pulls Tony to his feet rather roughly, his cowl doing an incredibly bad job of hiding a frown. His eyes are on the arc reactor, displayed proudly through the circular hole that Tony’s starting to cut into all his clothes these days. “You should get to safety.”

Tony balks at that. “I am fine, thank you, but I’m going to stay here.”

“You need to get out of here—”

“No, I’m part of the Avengers, I’m Iron Man, you can’t make me—”

“Do not argue with me!” Steve snaps, pushing Tony away and onto the stairs. “Without your armor, you’re useless here!”

Tony can’t even find a retort to that before the door slams in his face. He’s tempted to yell at Steve, to argue that what the hell, Steve’s just as useless since he can’t fly and besides, his suit, well, Rhodey’s suit, is up in the air and damn it, no one benches Tony Stark.

“Stop acting like a child.”

Tony turns around to see Coulson standing there, hands tucked into his pocket, looking almost casual. “Come on, Stark, let’s go. If you got hurt or killed, it’d be bad press and a very expensive potential lawsuit from Miss Potts. Captain America can take care of himself.”

\---

What defeats the witches is rain. When calling for thunder, Thor ended up with a storm on his hands and the rain had effectively melted them—like the evil witch right out of the Wizard of Oz. What no one expected, however, was that the more they melted, the more purple and familiar they seemed.

“Is that—” Tony nearly chokes on the coffee he stole from Clint. Natasha has her own cup and had glared at him until he backed away, but it’s not like he would have tried to take anything from her anyway.

He’s on the Helicarrier, observing the tide of battle through the multiple cameras that Fury has tapped into throughout the city. Most of them are grainy and useless, but there’s one or two that are stunningly clear. Tony has the sneaky suspicion that those are Stark Tower cameras that’s being commandeered.

“It can’t be,” Clint mutters, a frown on his face. “Can it?”

“Get someone from the lab to confirm this,” Coulson orders. Apparently, he’s somewhat high up on the pecking order, something that Tony never anticipated because Coulson watches and likes Super Nanny. No rightful minded person would ever admit to either.

“I think they’re what attacked Brooklyn last week,” Steve says, his voice filtering in through the Helicarrier’s system. He’s still on the roof of the Bank of America Tower and Tony has no idea why SHIELD is letting him stay there like bait. Coulson thinks that Tony dying is bad press? Try killing off a newly resurrected Captain America; Tony bets the army will be after SHIELD’s ass for months.

“We’re going to need to get samples of this. Someone tell Thor to stop the rain, it’s washing away everything.”

“Yeah, what happened to communications with Thor?” Clint asks.

“What do you think?” Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“Uh…electromagnetic wave interference,” Clint answers uncertainly, his voice squeaking out towards the end like it’s almost a question.

Tony snickers. “Twenty bucks says that he broke it.”

Clint stares at Tony’s proffered hand and makes a face. “Robbing the poor now, Stark?”

He ignores the jab and shrugs, withdrawing his hand. “Fine, be a party pooper, I don’t care. I’m going to let everyone know that you’re poor.”

“Can you two please shut up?” Coulson snaps from where he’s standing in front of several large monitors. “I don’t know how you people even function without breathing.”

Clint, being Coulson’s little butt monkey, shuts up immediately. Tony, not being Coulson’s little butt monkey, runs over to stare at the monitor and talk some more.

“So what’s the verdict? Yes, they are the blobs? I mean, they were barely reacting to my repulsors and Thor’s thunder and lightning didn’t seem to do as much damage as last time. Now they’re hurt by water? Are they evolving? Where are they from?” Tony sends Coulson a suspicious look. “Did they escape from your secret underground labs somewhere? Seems likely.”

It’s not his fault that SHIELD agents are all crabby and crazy and for a second, he thinks the world’s submerged underwater and tilted to the side. Then, he realizes that Coulson has stunned him with a karate chop to the side of his neck and left him there on the floor.

“You could have killed me!” he yells indignantly. Or at least tries to; his throat isn’t working quite right anymore and what comes out is a garble of words. He gets ignored.

“Black Widow, Hawkeye; escort the lab team. Collect the Captain, Thor, and the other flying tin can while you’re at it. And bring this with you.” A foot nudges Tony lightly in the shoulder. “Go pick up your armor. If you can that is, seeing as how it’s nearly a puddle stuck on the roof.”

Tony, still a little dazed, replies; “Tin cans can’t fly.”

 

\---

“Can we talk?”

Tony looks over to Steve, who’s looking anything but friendly at the moment. He looks back to Rhodey, who’s doing all the hard work of gathering up the remains of the Iron Man armor. The War Machine is looking worse for wear, but at least it’s not in the sorry state the Iron Man is. Tony’s definitely going to be doing some tweaks on both the armors later.

“Uh…no can do, cleaning up,” Tony says even though he’s not doing anything but sitting on the sidelines and directing Rhodey to all the missing pieces.

“You don’t look very busy,” Steve says, eyes narrowed. He’s taken off the cowl and even then, his hair is ridiculously perfect. No cowl-hair or a stray strand out of place and it’s not fair because Tony’s hair gets messy when he dons the suit; it’s like a superpower and Steve, the practical man that he is, he probably doesn’t even care.

Tony shrugs. “I am very busy. Wait, wait what are you doing—Rhodey, save me!”

Steve grabs him by the arm, hauling him onto his feet with one hand, and drags him a length away from Rhodey’s earshot. It’s a stupid illusion of privacy, not nearly far enough away from the suit’s speakers, but Rhodey gives Tony a mock salute and he can feel his stomach plummeting. There would be no saving for him.

“I’ll give you two some space, shall I?” Rhodey says, grabbing the remains of the Iron Man and rocketing off into the sky. “See you back at the Tower.”

And then he’s left alone on the roof with a silently furious Steve Rogers and Tony knows that he’s going to get yelled at. Steve has the exact same look that shows up on Pepper’s face when she’s exceptionally displeased with him. What’s he done this time? Did he say something wrong? Was this about not cleaning up properly?

“What?” Tony finally asks when Steve doesn’t say anything for the longest time. The silence is making him antsy.

Steve glares at him for a moment more. “There is something very wrong with you.”

It takes all that Tony can to not roll his eyes, but he says nothing in response. It’s true, anyway. “Uh, yeah, glad you noticed,” he replies wryly, when it seems that there’s going to be no further words from Steve.

After another, long, grueling silence, Steve sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know, Natasha warned me about your reckless tendencies. It’s not something to be proud of,” he hisses. “You have the armor, you can fly, you even have laser beams coming out of your hands! You were made for ranged fighting! But you do the unintelligent thing of body slamming—”

“Hey, I saved your life! Be grateful! You were the giant target on top of a building!”

“—she melted your armor! I can handle myself!”

“They were going supersonic speeds! Oh, wait, I forgot, you’re Captain America. You can do anything, except woops! You’re still human! Even if you dodged their stupid magic lightning balls, if they collided with you, you’d be run through! You are not Thor!”

“Damn it, Tony!” Steve throws his hands up in the air. “She melted your armor. Your armor! You could have died!”

And then Tony understood. Steve’s worried; the biggest mess had been the metal at the chest area, where the arc reactor is. If somehow, the witch’s magic had gotten through, that would have been the end of him. He wouldn’t be able to last half an hour without the power source in his chest.

“The armor’s designed to protect it,” Tony says. He taps at the surface of the arc reactor, making a small, rapping noise as his knuckles bounces off it. “I make something epic and legendary only to have it limited by a strategic weak point? I’d be the world’s greatest laughingstock instead of its greatest superhero.”

“What if it had? You can’t take that risk again.”

“I’m not that sloppy.”

Steve’s shoulders straighten, just a bit. “You’re not the only superhero around here.”

“Yeah, I know, I said I’m the greatest.”

“Then when you’re out of the armor, you listen to what I say.”

Tony laughs. He wonders if it’s too late—too early, too inappropriate, too whatever, but the words are tumbling out of his mouth before his brain can fully catch up. “Aww, honey, we’re not married and you want me to listen to your every whim? Even Pepper can’t do that.”

Steve makes a little choking noise, a slight pink entering his cheeks, but his expression remains resolute and steady. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. When we’re in the field, when we’re the Avengers and even if you’re not in the armor—especially, when you’re not in the armor— you listen to me. You listen to the orders and you follow them. You don’t talk back. This is for your safety, Tony.”

Tony bristles. “I’m not a soldier.”

“Just,” Steve heaves a little frustrated sigh, “just do as you’re told. Please. I don’t want to see you hurt or, or anyone else dead. A lot of people that are important to me are…gone. Promise me.”

The ‘yes’ hangs at the tip of Tony’s tongue; he’s not against keeping himself safe—he doesn’t want to die, he’s not searching for a grave. He’s a selfish bastard that wants to sample everything the world has to offer, but loss and death. He knows them too well. He sympathizes with Steve; he doesn’t want another person to suffer and hurt. It’s the whole reason he made the armor. To protect those who didn’t have a means to defend themselves.

But the ‘no’ in his head wars with the ‘yes’ in his mouth. He is Tony Stark; he never conforms to people’s wishes or expectations. He is the world’s most unlikely man to become a superhero; he’s rich, he’s powerful, and people listen to him. Not the other way around. He’s not a soldier, doesn’t follow commands like one, and does what he likes.

“Tony?”

“Fine,” Tony says. “I promise.”

Steve gives him a calculated look. “Don’t lie to me.”

Tony stops himself from making a face at that. “I’m a grown man, Steve. I can make big decisions on my own.”

Steve steps into his personal space, big and blue and very intimidating. He’s stripped off his gloves and tossed them onto the ground, his bare hands—sweaty, calloused in his palms from constant handling of his shield—finds their way to cling onto Tony’s, holding on tight and making shivers of delight go up and down his arm as the bond acts up. He tries to pull away, but Steve’s grip is of iron.

“Promise me,” Steve says and from this close, Tony can see that Steve is being affected by the bond as well. His pupils are dilated, and his eyes are focusing between Tony’s mouth and the arc reactor.

“Stop cheating,” Tony hisses, trying to pull away again. Steve’s hands are so big and even though he’s holding on so tightly, he’s trying not to hurt Tony. “Stop, stop! Fine, fine! I promise! Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, now let go before we both do something we regret!”

Steve lets go, but the effect lingers. Tony can feel the blood pumping through his veins, almost like the adrenaline rush he gets from flying the armor, but not quite like that. There’s a lazy sense of arousal sitting in the pit of his stomach, his useless heart beating a mile a minute.

“Okay,” says Steve and his breath is coming out a tad quicker than normal. “Okay.” He gives Tony one last look and walks away.

\---

The one thing that Tony notices, when he steps foot into Pepper’s office, is the distinct lack of a crazy, undercover SHIELD ninja.

“Sooo…” he trails off, making little waving motions with his fingers in Pepper’s direction. “Where is she?”

Pepper doesn’t so much as look up from the screen she’s staring at and answers rather waspishly; “busy. What are you here for? God knows you never come into the office willingly.”

“Ouch, I’m hurt by that—I do come in willingly, just when it suits me. Being CEO had to have perks, right?” At that, Pepper tears her eyes away from the screen to give Tony a withering look. He smiles back winningly.

She sighs and turns off her monitor. “Yes, Tony?” she asks in a long-suffering tone of voice, like a school teacher calling on a child in class that always wanted to answer questions and not giving the other children a chance.

He fidgets for a bit, staring at everything in the room even though he’s been in here for a thousand times; Pepper’s sitting at his desk—her desk, now—and he wonders briefly if he could be as capable a CEO as Pepper. It’s a fantasy. Pepper’s firm hand and eye for detail is what Stark Industries needs, not Tony’s flashy, devil-may-care attitude. He can do it, of course, but that’s because he’s been born into it and knows what should or should not be done. But Pepper is different: she genuinely cares and will not run Stark Industries into the ground without a fight.

“What’s it like?” he asks.

She stares at him. “What’s what like? You’re going to need to give me a bit more here, I’m not following.”

“Natasha. What’s it like?”

Her expression, previously impassive and hinted at just the slight bit of impatience, turns to a frown. “Did she tell you? How do you know? She said she wouldn’t tell!”

He contemplates lying, just for a moment, to see if Pepper can get as angry at Natasha as she does with him, but he doesn’t. Pepper deserves someone to make her happy. “We were bonded before, even if it was kind of half-assed, but it was still kind of a bond. Of course I’d know. That’s the way it works.”

Her frown deepens further. “You said that it didn’t work,” she says slowly. “Oh my god, you lied to me? How could you—why? Why do you never tell me anything?”

“You said it didn’t work first!”

“Yeah, because I was being truthful about not feeling anything at all,” she hisses. “But if you were bonded to me, that’s a partial bonding.” She throws her hands up into the air. “How can you not tell me that we were partially bonded? I need to know these things!”

There’s a loud bang that causes both of them to jump in their seats and to turn to the door.

Natasha’s standing there, a stack of papers in one hand and the other settled firmly on the door handle, which she had previously slammed closed.

“Is something the matter here, Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts?” she asks, calm and collected, with one perfectly plucked eyebrow arched. “Does he need to be escorted out?”

“No! No, there’s no need, thank you for worrying,” Pepper says, shooting Natasha a smile and a glare at Tony. “Tony’s just been…enlightening me on some things that he should have enlightened me on ages ago.”

“My enlightening dial is set to procrastinate,” he says in response. “So, Natasha—Natalie, do you still go by that name here? Or does everyone call you Natasha now?—how’s the bonding life?”

He catches a small snort of amusement from her as she passes by him to get around Pepper’s large desk. “These are the documents from HR and Accounting,” she says, laying down the papers on the desk. She drops the professional veneer and leans in close to Pepper, eyes scrutinizing every detail. “You were worried. Your blood pressure is going to go up again.”

“Wait, you have high blood pressure?” Tony interrupts. Pepper shoots him a mild glare and he shrinks a bit in his seat. “I knew that. You told me before during that one time over that thing we were doing at that one place.”

Pepper sighs, pulling away from Natasha to give Tony her undivided attention. “What are you really doing here? I am busy and if you are going to waste my time, I am going to ask Natasha to kick you out of here on your rear.”

“I’d do it,” Natasha says, a pleasant smile on her face. “It’ll be fun.”

He stares at Natasha, the way that she’s standing right beside Pepper’s desk, where Pepper used to stand when he would sit behind that giant desk. He doesn’t doubt her words for a second. She’s sadistic and crazy. “Right. Nothing important. I’ll be off, I don’t need assistance to look like an ass, thanks.”

Pepper slams her hand on to the top of the desk. “Sit back down,” she grits through her teeth. Both Natasha and Tony stare at her in alarm.

“You always do this thing where you don’t confide in people. Anything that’s important that you need help with or just something that’s really, really important that other people should know, you don’t tell anyone! I know you want people to think that you’re the one guy in the world who’s got it all together with no cares in the world, but you don’t! You have trust issues bigger than your daddy issues and your stupid, giant ego is too…too stupid to let you reach out for some help! So, no, you are not walking out that door until you tell me what is wrong. You didn’t come into the office today to work, you came here to see me, so tell me. What. Is. Wrong.”

Tony clears his throat. “You’re on fire today,” he comments. “Wow.”

“I am your friend, first and foremost. I worry about you. A lot.” She doesn’t look over at Natasha when she waves her away, Natasha taking her leave gracefully and shutting the door calmly behind her. “Tony, please.”

He exhales and runs a hand through his hair, still smelling of iron and smoke from his workshop. “Bonding. How—what, what’s it like? What happens?”

He’s not interested in it, he tells himself. He’s just curious as to what happens. He told Steve that he didn’t want to bond and he doesn't have any intention to break that vow, at least, not yet and without serious consideration. When he attempted it with Pepper, it had been different: it was an arbitrary bond where they both knew they weren’t the greatest match, there was no shocking sensation like with Steve just screaming that for more touches, that it's right for them to be slotted together somehow. He’s not going to bond, just curious about the whole thing and who else could tell him all about it? Certainly not Rhodey; he’s about as interested as settling down as Tony is.

“It’s not complicated,” Pepper says with a knowing look. “You open up yourself completely with another person who accepts you and loves you no matter what. The world doesn’t stop, life goes on, and you have the best person ever standing by your side.”

“Can you…” Tony wiggles his fingers in the air. “Feel? Talk?”

The edge of her mouth twitches upward. “You know that rarely happens in bonding. One out of a million couples, and even then there are limits to what they can do. They’re not like superpowers, Tony.”

“Yeah, but that’s like the only cool thing to come out of it. So, can you? Feel each other’s emotions, talking in each other’s heads, that kind of thing?”

This gets Pepper to smile, almost shyly. “When we’re close to each other, I know what she’s feeling. When she’s farther away, I can’t, but I know that she’s there and she’s safe.” At that admission, her eyes shine bright and happy.

Tony smiles back. “You’re one in a million, Pep.”

“Are you thinking about bonding with Steve?”

He really should have been expecting that question, but at the same time, he never thought that he’d have to hear it. He chokes on nothing and ends up in a coughing fit, ending with Pepper handing him a cup of water.

“I’m going to take that as a yes.”

“I didn’t even say anything! I was coughing. Last time I checked, coughing wasn’t a form of language. Can you imagine it? People coughing to communicate? That’d be like, colds and viruses everywhere. Everyone would be sick all the time. No one would show up to work because they’re too busy being sick. Also, man, that’s pretty gross now that I think about it, I don’t want to be coughed at twenty-four seven and I definitely don’t want to be coughed at by Ferguson down at R&D.”

Pepper raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “Did you talk to him?”

Tony hesitates, just a fraction and Pepper’s look intensifies. His mouth opens and words tumble out. “Yeah, nice guy, real understanding. I told him no.”

She inhales, closes her eyes, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Natasha told me that there’s something complicated between you two blockheads and I told her that there’s no possible way you can screw this up. What did you do wrong?”

Tony fidgets in his seat. “I might, possibly, theoretically—just saying, not for real—that I need a time machine. Just go back to the beginning and just jump the guy instead of taking him to a bar and getting drunk.”

Pepper buries her face in her hands. When she’s done lamenting Tony’s stupidity and life choices, she straightens herself and looks him square in the eye.

“Later, you will apologize for acting hastily and like an ass. And then take him out to dinner at a restaurant of his choosing. You will be on your best behavior and you will learn about this man who may or may not be your chance at happiness. Because I know you, Tony. You’re going to regret missing out on this.”

\---

Tony figures that he’s going to need to stop relying on Pepper for everything one day, but today is definitely not that day. He’s pacing outside of Steve’s room at SHIELD headquarters, glaring holes at the closed door, his casual clothes that weren’t all that casual being rumpled to hell as he yanks on his sleeves and any lose threads he can find. He shoots Pepper a quick text detailing his dilemma: ‘HIS DOOR IS CLOSED. WHAT NOW.’

The reply is imminent: ‘KNOCK. BE NICE.’

He takes her sage advice and raps his knuckles against the door with more force than necessary. There’s a long moment of silence where Tony’s so tempted to just turn tail and run, but seeing Pepper’s disappointed face roots his feet to the ground. Then he hears the sound of a bolt unlocking and the doorknob turning.

“Er, hi,” says Steve.

“Yeah. Hi.”

Steve casts a suspicious look down the hall.

“Uh, no, it’s just me. Look, I just wanted to talk. Converse. With you. Talking at someone is very dull and I would like to have a conversation. With you. So we can talk about things.”

Steve’s eyebrows disappears into his hairline and Tony’s inwardly punching himself in the face for his brain deserting him at such a crucial time. He’s a certified genius! What the hey!

“What’s this about?” Steve asks.

“Are you free tonight? How about dinner? My treat. We’ll go wherever you want to go, maybe that Italian place I heard you talking to Clint about. It’s a good place, right? You like it? Of course you do, it’s probably got a homey atmosphere and great food, who doesn’t like that—”

Steve’s hand grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him into the room, door shutting with an audible sound behind him.

The place is very strange, a mishmash of modern and aged, and yet barren at the same time. There’s a collection of books sitting on the floor, next to a pile of Ikea projects. Tony frowns at the half assembled bookshelf; it looks like Steve started on it one day and just left it there. There’s a thin, smattering of dust stuck on its surface.

“Why are you here?” Steve asks. “Really?”

“Your place is boring. You need to get out more or you’ll really become a grandpa, wrinkles and everything. And not the sexy wrinkles either, just saggy, old, depressing wrinkles. Come on, food,” Tony says, heading for the door, but Steve blocks him from getting out.

“The last time we did something like this…” Steve looks to the side, expression sour. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

Tony lifts a hand, just about to slap Steve on the arm good-naturedly, but stops. “Uh, yeah,” he admits. “Sorry about that. Let’s start over. This time, you do the choosing. Just-just, come on. I’m trying here!”

Steve gives him another suspicious look and then huffs a small puff of breath. “Okay, let me grab my jacket. And we’re not driving anywhere, we’re walking.”

\---

Steve leads him to the Italian place; like Tony predicted, it’s homey and has good food. What Tony doesn’t expect is that half of SHIELD seems to be there also eating dinner. No one bats an eye at them when they enter. On their way to a table, they pass by Coulson at a large table, shoveling what has to be the world’s largest plate of spaghetti down his gullet.

“Uh-uh, I’m eating,” is all Coulson says upon seeing Tony and Steve.

“You keep at that,” Tony says, giving him a hearty pat on the back, complete with a sticky note proclaiming that Coulson is a ‘buttmunch.’ Steve frowns at that, but he doesn’t do anything to stop Tony or brings the note to Coulson’s attention. Tony silently hands the pad of sticky notes back to the waiter, who pockets it immediately.

“Here we are, sirs,” the waiter says when he’s seated them somewhere far away from Coulson. “Someone will be by to take your order shortly.” He hands them the menu and skitters back to the front of the restaurant.

Tony stares at Steve over the top of his menu. “There’s a lot of SHIELD people here.”

“Yes,” Steve says. “The cafeteria food at headquarters is horrible. Everyone either makes their own meals or eat out as often as possible.” He meets Tony’s eyes for just a moment. “I found Director Fury in here once.”

Tony gapes. “No way!” He tries to picture Fury in this quaint little Italian place; him and his long leather coat and one eye would just clash horribly with the white and red checkered tablecloth. Then again, he’s seen Fury at a donut shop, sitting in one of the plastic booths. Fury just clashes with everything, in Tony’s opinion, and just not in the aesthetic sense either.

“Yes way.” Steve’s looking inordinately pleased with himself, eyes twinkling even in the dim light of the restaurant.

Tony snorts and their light conversation is cut short by a petite girl coming up to their table to get their orders. Neither of them have read the menu, but Steve knows the place well enough that he rattles off a plate name and Tony tells her to get him their best tasting pasta dish.

The moment the girl leaves, Tony wants to yell for her to come back. How is he supposed to do this? What’s he supposed to say to Steve? The guy’s suspicious of him having some sort of dastardly plans—which he probably does have, involving Steve and a bed, but Steve’s probably not thinking that kind of dastardly—and to top it all off, he doesn’t even like Tony. If anything, he’s patient like an adult is with a petulant child. And Tony is not a child.

“So. Conversing. That was part of my plan—my evil, evil, dastardly plan—I’m not actually evil, since I’m on the same side as you, but jeez, can you stop it with that look? You’re making me feel really judged here. Seriously, do you have x-ray vision or something? I think that’d be a pretty harmful power to have, actually. You just stare at someone and then, bam! Cancer. Not right away, but eventually, cancer! Can you, I don’t know, maybe look that way instead?”

Steve obediently turns his head and looks over at the back of Coulson’s chair instead. Tony can see the top of the sticky note still on his back.

“I’m not judging you,” Steve says. “Well, not judging badly of you, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh? Then you’re judging me favorably?”

“Less by the second,” Steve amends with a small smile. Tony laughs at that.

“I think that’s the first time you’ve told me a joke. That was a joke right? Wait, what am I saying, of course it was.”

“Can I turn my head back now? I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

“Er, yeah. I didn’t think you’d actually do that. I was just joking. For future references.”

“Noted.” Steve turns back to him, expression serious again. “I don’t actually think badly of you. You—you’re—” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, a furrow barring his brow. “You’re a very confusing person, you know? But despite that, I know you’re a good guy. I didn’t think you gave a damn about anybody except for yourself, but you care. You just do it in a way that’s very…unexpected. Just so you know, for future references.”

There’s nothing he can say to that. It’s so out of left field that all Tony can do is fall back on his Pepper-trained instincts and smile. “Don’t tell people that. My reputation’s at stake,” he finally manages to say, although it comes out as a near whisper.

Steve ducks his head, a blush spreading over his face, as if just now he’s getting embarrassed.

They fall into silence after that. Tony can’t classify it as awkward, but neither is it comfortable. He’s staring at Steve and Steve’s staring back and it feels like they’re both reevaluating each other. The look in Steve’s eyes is nothing like when Tony took him to the bar.

Just like that, Tony wants to, no, he needs to order a drink.

“Don’t,” says Steve.

Tony blinks. “What?”

“You shouldn’t drink so much. It’s bad for your liver.”

Tony frowns. “How would you know what I was going to do? Are you reading my mind? Did you develop mutant powers over the last five minutes and didn’t tell me about it? Does Fury know?”

Steve sighs. “No, but you’re getting twitchy. I guessed that you wanted a drink.”

Oddly enough, Tony feels disappointed by that response. “Alright. Then what do you suggest? Something nonalcoholic, right?”

Steve’s quiet for a bit and then replies; “They make a wicked lemonade here.”

Tony snorts when he hears that. “Lemonade in an Italian restaurant,” he mutters and there must be something in his tone of voice that gets Steve to make that disappointed looking face. It makes him instantly regret his words, but he doesn’t utter a word in apology. He hails the waitress from before and asks her to bring them both some lemonade. When he turns back to Steve, the disappointed look is gone, replaced by a placid one instead. Tony’s not sure what that means.

“What?”

Steve shakes his head. “Nothing.”

They sit in silence some more until their meals come with their drinks. Steve has lasagna, which looks really good, and Tony has a giant plate of spaghetti placed in front of him. The aroma is absolutely mouthwatering.

“Enjoy the meal, gentlemen,” the waitress says, sauntering off.

“I hope you like it,” Steve says. He’s looking at Tony with bright, hopeful eyes and Tony knows that if he says anything less than praises, he’d be crushing Steve’s heart. This place must be Steve’s favorite restaurant. Contrary to what Pepper thinks, he does pay attention to the details; he’s an engineer for crying out loud.

He picks up the fork and spears a bundle of pasta, twirling it around until it’s a sizable ball of noodles wrapped around the prongs. He’s about to take a bite into it when there’s loud beeping starts to emanate from every corner of the room, including from his own pocket.

There’s the screeching of chair legs against the floor as SHIELD agents simultaneously gets up and files for the door in an orderly, but hurried fashion. Coulson shows up at their table, sparing them a raised eyebrow before getting right down to business. “You two are up. Get to the Helicarrier now; New York is under attack.”

\---

No one really knows how to handle the attack. Tony stares, frowning really hard as he urges JARVIS to reboot all sensory functions. Standing next to him, Clint is also gawking, his bow in hand forgotten as they stare down from the open hatch of the Quinjet.

“So, when Coulson said that New York was under attack…” Tony looks over at Steve, who shrugs.

“Maybe they’re dangerous?”

“They’re unicorns,” Clint says, sounding quite distressed. “I did not sign up for this. Why are we being called in and not, I don’t know, a horse trainer?”

As if on cue, one of the unicorns jumps into the air and starts to fly.

“Are there flying horse trainers?” Tony retorts.

“Um, it’s heading for us,” Bruce says from where he’s barely peeking out over the hatch. He’s looking a bit green in the face and not in the Hulk way either. “It doesn’t seem very friendly.”

JARVIS finally reboots and flags a warning at the edge of Tony’s vision. “Guys, my suit is picking up the same magic signature as the witches,” he announces. “Let’s move this thing out of the way before we crash land or something. By the way, has someone called Thor? I don’t want to be the only guy that has to deal with magical flying ponies.”

“Hang on to something,” Natasha says from the pilot’s seat and then guns it through the air. Bruce and Clint go flying into each other and Steve’s reached over to grab a hold of Tony, who is more than rooted to the spot thanks to his armor.

“At least close the hatch!” Clint yells.

Steve leans out over the hatch and Tony holds on to him, not willing to let the reckless idiot to fall out in case he leans over too far or something. “I’m the guy in a suit that flies, maybe you should let me be the one to go look out over into a potential death trap.”

Steve comes back in, face pale and eyes wide. “Uh,” he says as Natasha finally shuts the door to the hatch as they pick up speed.

“Oh my god, they’re all following us, aren’t they?” Clint groans.

“Yeah. They are,” Steve says. He lets go of Tony’s armor to pat Clint on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Maybe they’re peaceful?”

Tony snorts. “You were just saying that they might be dangerous a moment ago.”

“I’ve never met a unicorn before,” Steve says with a shrug.

“Yeah, I don’t even know how to respond to that other than to crush your dreams. You’re never going to meet a unicorn, they’re not real, and even if they were, they like girls and virgins,” Tony says. His sensors pick up a small spike in Steve’s body temperature, but since Steve’s not in any danger of exploding, he dismisses it. “Okay, Natasha, where are you flying us?”

“Somewhere empty where SHIELD can put up a perimeter. If their magic signature matches the witches from the other week, then they might be the goo again. We already know that they’re able to adapt and evolve somehow. Even if they’re not, flying equines will be a nuisance to all the air traffic around here and SHIELD really doesn’t need to deal with PETA—”

There’s a loud booming noise of something colliding with the outside of the jet.

“I hope that’s Thor,” Clint says as more pounding and clanking noises are heard from the roof. It’s like hundreds of hooves pounding down on them and Tony hopes that the Quinjet will hold out. “Natasha, what’s going on?”

“Sit back, hold on tight, I need to employ evasive maneuvers,” she says.

They all scramble for the seats against the walls, with Clint clambering over to the co-pilot seat up front with Natasha. Tony’s just finished buckling himself in when the jet turns upside down and veers off to a side. That silences all the pounding and clanking of hooves for a moment and then JARVIS is sending him another alert.

“Tony, are you okay?”

He looks over at Steve and realized he’s been quiet for a while. Bruce, in the next seat, has his eyes squeezed shut and looking like he’s doing his best to not throw up.

“I don’t know, maybe there’s something wrong with JARVIS, he’s telling me that—”

There’s the unmistakable crunching noise of metal giving way and Tony’s head is just inches away from a horn.

“Natasha, what happened to the evasive part of evasive maneuvers?!” he just about screeches as he tears away from his seat. The horn retracts from the wall, leaving a decent sized hole there for Tony to look through.

They’re surrounded by the unicorns, all flying in tandem with the jet no matter what Natasha tries. They look no different from normal horses; coats, manes, and tail all of white. The only things that did differentiate them from horses were the horns on their heads and fangs protruding from their mouths.

“Devil horses!” Tony screeches as another horn pops through the jet.

“We need to land before they take us out of the air,” Steve calls out to their pilots, not that either of them are any good in Tony’s mind. “Is there anywhere close by where we can put this thing?”

“Searching now,” Clint calls back. “Why is New York such a big ass place anyway? The rent is insane for the space that you get and everywhere you go, there’s someone there! No space at all!”

“Stop your complaining. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do,” Tony says, walking over to the hatch. “Open this up!” A hand closes over his elbow and he wouldn’t even have noticed if Steve didn’t pull him back. In the Iron Man, Tony’s taller than Steve and much stronger too.

Steve’s giving him an inscrutable look, making Tony’s stomach churn with the way his eyes are so obviously judging him, and damn it, he’s going to say no, that Tony’s going to do something stupid—Tony’s so wrapped up in the thoughts running around his brain that he barely registers it when Steve moves his hand away and gives him an approving nod.

“Good luck,” he says.

“Yeah, thanks, don’t need it,” he replies as the hatch opens.

He’s immediately greeted with a unicorn, mouth hanging open and horn dropped in a ready charge. Tony sent a repulsor blast at it and he really hoped that PETA won’t be defending mythical creatures that also happen to be a danger to everyone alive by being able to fly and skewer through high tension metal. Also, it’s much uglier up close than he thought.

He leaps out of the hatch, righting himself as soon as he can, and then blasts off into the sky. Some of the unicorns turned their attentions towards him, but they continue their assault on the Quinjet. “Oh no, you don’t,” Tony mutters to himself under his breath. He sends off some more repulsors blasts, taking care to try not to hit the Quinjet, but to scatter the unicorns. Natasha turns the jet a sharp right and then flies straight up before dropping back down again to fly normally.

“You’re going to have to pull them off of us or we’re not going to last! One of the engines is already damaged,” Natasha says over the comm.

“What? Woman, why do you not tell me these things?” he yells back at her. “Okay, okay, I’m on it. A unicorn-less ride coming right up.”

He reaches out and grabs the nearest tail and yanks. Hard.

The unicorn rears back, whinnying and then turns to glare at him, nostrils flaring. It paws at the sky for a moment and then it charges, head lowered and mouth parted in heavy pants. At such close range, Tony dodges the horn, but isn’t able to avoid the giant body that barrels into him, knocking him off his course. He only manages to right himself in the air when another unicorn runs into him and then another and another until he’s become some sort of Iron Man pinball machine trapped between the unicorns.

“Great job!” Clint crows. “Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing, we’re getting stability back.”

“Is it—okay to—kill them?” Tony wheezes out.

“Yeah, sure, whatever you want. They’re the purple jello-goo thing, right?”

Tony grabs onto the mane of the nearest unicorn and doesn’t let go, even when it thrashes and rears and bucks. “No one’s going to blame me for this,” he mutters and repulsors blasts it right in the face. It screeches, a sound so unearthly that it gives Tony goose bumps to hear, but otherwise it doesn’t seem to faze it. The unicorn charges at Tony, angry. He barely veers out of the way when another one charges at him from behind. The only reason he knew that one was coming at all is because JARVIS pulled up a warning.

“Hey, guys, my repulsors don’t work on them,” he announces through the comm.

“What do you mean they don’t work?” Steve’s voice asks. Tony can hear Clint grappling for the speaker that Steve no doubt stole.

“It kind of works—shoot them in the face, it stuns them for a bit, but that’s it. They aren’t hurt by it. Well, I’m not that surprised, since they can punch holes through the Quinjet—”

“Wait, wait!” Clint clearly got the speaker back from Steve. “Isn’t the magic of a unicorn contained in their horns? So, they’re useless without it?”

Silence. Endless teasing is going to happen for this. But there’s a problem at hand, an Avengers problem. “Are you suggesting that I break off their horns?” Tony asks. “What a terrible thing to do to—”

“No jokes,” Natasha’s dead serious voice comes over the comm and Tony shuts up.

“I’ll see if I can’t try it,” he says instead and dives at one of the unicorn nearest to him. He reaches for its horn and suddenly, he finds himself being surrounded on all sides. “Oh, well, shit.”

It’s the craziest chase he’s ever done, including the time with the witches, but how many people can say that they were chased through the air by a herd of what looks like carnivorous unicorn? He zooms upward, higher and higher as the herd chases him, horns lowered for a charge. If there weren’t just so many of them, maybe he can do something, but he’s not about to risk putting himself or the armor at risk of being run through by the unicorns. He likes being intact and not full of holes, thank you very much.

“Good news! They’re not following you anymore! Bad news, they’re following me and if I stop, they’ll probably run me through,” he tells the team. “Any bright ideas now?”

“We found a spot!” Clint replies. “We’re over by the beach. Sending coordinates now.”

Tony jets off to the direction that Clint provides and on the way there, notices a crowd of people surrounding the area of the beach. SHIELD agents are there, corralling them and getting them to leave. When Tony touches down onto the sand, there’s no one there except the Avengers.

“You know Fury’s going to bill me for the damages,” Tony says the moment he sees the condition of the Quinjet. “Even though I wasn’t the one that did it.”

“He’s not that petty of a man,” Natasha retorts, her gun held at ready as the herd of unicorns descends upon them.

There’s one, faster than all the rest that’s charging at them and Steve throws his shield at it, missing it completely. If its expression could be determined, Tony would call the unicorn a smug bastard. The shield boomerangs back to Steve, cutting straight through its horn.

It screeches and stumbles in the air, falling onto the sand and kicking about wildly. It’s disturbing to watch as the unicorn starts to melt away, its form seeming to sink together, changing into a blob. It oozes purple, slimy and shining in a wet sort of way. Tony blinks and stares back into the herd, wondering what the hell are they.

“Cut off their horns!” Steve yells as another unicorn charges at him. He meets it straight on with his shield, cracking down on the horn with all his might, severing it.

“Got it!” Natasha says from the back of one of the unicorns, a hand wrapped around its horn and the other on a knife, sawing away at it. Not too far away, Clint’s doing the same thing.

“Where’s the green guy?” Tony asks, feeling rather useless since his repulsors beams don’t do anything and his repertoire of weapons is mostly blowing things up or setting fire to them. He’s fast enough up in the air, but on the ground, the Iron Man is slower, clumsier. He can’t do things like Natasha and Clint, climbing onto the unicorns’ backs. The best he can do is wait for one to charge at him and grab it by the horn and snap it, hoping that his back isn’t open to attack while he did it.

“Giving up his lunch,” Clint says through gritted teeth as he tries to dodge horns, hooves, and teeth coming down on his head at the same time as sawing off the horn of the unicorn he’s perched on. He gives a grunt and a final motion, throwing the horn onto the sand before jumping gracefully away from the unicorn’s bucking legs.

There’s a roar from inside the Quinjet and then the hatch door disappears, crumpled like nothing into the Hulk’s giant hand. He roars again, bringing some of the unicorns charging to a halt, and then he jumps into the fray, grabbing a unicorn from the air, snapping its horn and probably more with just a flick of his thumb. It falls, screeching, but it’s only when it hits the sand that Tony notices it melting.

He stares at the sand and at the unicorns—none of them have actually touched down on the sand; they’re hovering around, flying low enough for their horns to skewer them through the chest, but high enough so they don’t actually touch the sand.

“The sand!” he yells. “It’s the sand! Not their horns!”

“What?” Steve spares him a quick glance and then his eyes go wide. “Tony, look out!” He takes a flying leap, shield raised up to chest level, deflecting a unicorn. Tony really needs to get his hands on Steve’s shield; if even the unicorns can’t pierce through it, then it’s got to be something worth looking into. Maybe he can make a new armor out of the shield material.

And then he notices the large gash at Steve’s arm and the other one at his head.

He doesn’t need any justification for pushing Steve down onto the sand and firing repulsors blasts at the other unicorns charging at them. If his theory is true, then staying down in the sand is the safer place to be than in the air.

“Stay down!” he orders Steve, who's lips thin out into an unhappy line. “It’s the sand! They turn back into goo when they touch the sand!”

He aims two repulsors blasts into the sand, sending a wave of it up into the air. The loud screeching starts up and Tony watches in satisfaction as the ones that comes in contact with the sand start to melt and revert back into purple globs of goo.

Tony smirks as half of the herd is gone with that wave of sand and then the Hulk joins in, his huge hands sending up sand into the air like a gleeful child in a sandbox. Between the two of them, they get all of the unicorns without any more mishaps, the purple globs of goo useless and inert on the sand, quite unlike the first time that the Avengers fought them, when they bounced around buildings and through streets.

“Holy crap,” Clint says, walking up to one of the goo piles and kicking some sand on top of it. It shudders and then falls still. He’s bleeding from a cut at his shoulder and covered in sand. “This has been the weirdest day ever.”

Tony lifts his faceplate up, taking in the scene with his own eyes. SHIELD’s repair team has it easy this time; they just need to shovel sand all back into the grooves that are left on the beach. He looks over at Steve, who had discarded his cowl and has a light smile on his face despite the blood in his hair.

“Are you…?” Okay? Feeling steady on your feet? Alright? Tony wants to ask, but the words don’t come out. Instead, he gestures to the head wound.

“Huh?” Steve touches his head and is genuinely surprised when his hand comes away bloody. “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” he says. “I can’t even feel it.”

“Yeah, and that?” Tony points at the other gash on his bicep. Really, Steve’s lucky to have only gotten away with just those two minor wounds from a raging stampede of bloodthirsty unicorns. “Are you not feeling that either?”

Steve shakes his head, completely bewildered.

“So, last time when we were fighting the witches, you were lecturing me about something?” Tony says, keeping his voice as neutral as he can. “Because today, it wasn’t me being a hero.” He gives Steve his sharpest, I-am-very-upset-with-you look, which Steve returns with a blank stare.

“I can take care of myself, Rogers, I don’t need you to be jumping to my defense.”

“I’m sure you’ve realized that your dexterity needs work,” Steve replies. “There’s no way that you could have dodged that unicorn if I didn’t save you.”

“I could have,” he snaps and Steve raises an eyebrow. He almost looks amused. What’s he looking so amused for? Is there something funny? He’s being serious right now! “What’s—”

“Don’t. You are…really something, Tony,” Steve says with a sigh. Tony quirks his head. What’s that supposed to mean? “Let’s just call it even, alright?” Steve extends a hand, but Tony pushes it away. 

“Gentlemen,” Fury says, strutting onto the scene wearing his usual ensemble of black, black, and more black. It stops whatever spat that seems to be oncoming, but Tony gives him an evil eye anyway for making him tear his attention away from Steve. Neither Steve or Tony says a word, the air electric around them. 

Fury looks around at the carnage, where SHIELD lab rats are scurrying around trying to package and seal the goo into containers. “Good work today.” He eyes the damage to the Quinjet, stares at Bruce who had de-Hulked, and then at Tony, and shakes his head. 

“Sir,” Natasha says, popping out of nowhere. “What are these things?” 

Fury shakes his head, folding his arms over his chest. “Don’t know what they are,” he admits. “We can keep them in the lab for about a week at most, and then they disintegrate. Figuring out where these things are coming from and stopping them is SHIELD’s top priority right now.” He casts another glance around and heaves a sigh. “Go get cleaned up. You’re dismissed.” 

Tony’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth—har, har—and immediately lowers the faceplate. He’s about to fly off into the sky when he remembers Steve. 

“We never got to finish our dinner,” he says, tentatively. There’s a long stretch of silence between them, Tony almost thinking that Steve’s going to ignore him. 

“They really do have the best food there,” Steve says finally, dejectedly. He’s staring at the sand, at the sky; everywhere except at Tony. “You have to try it sometimes.” 

Tony smiles, even though Steve can’t see it. He opens his mouth and goes with it. There's nothing to lose. “Well, since as neither of us have eaten yet, come have dinner at my place. I think I can get the kitchen to whip up something nice for us.”

At first, Steve doesn’t reply. Then, he blinks, looks straight at Tony, and smiles, taking Tony’s breath away. There's hope yet. “Yeah, okay, sure, but I look like a mess and there’s sand everywhere—”

“I’m wearing armor and there’s sand in places where there shouldn’t even be sand,” Tony deadpans. “Coming?” He holds out a hand. Steve takes it.

“How…?”

“Did you ever fly before? Hold on tight,” Tony says, wrapping one arm around Steve’s waist. Hesitantly, Steve throws an arm over Tony’s shoulders. It's awkward as hell when it's not Pepper in his arms because Steve is huge compared to her and dressed in bright, patriotic colors to boot.

The armor picks up on Steve’s accelerated heart rate and Tony makes sure to hold Steve closer. “I have flown before, on airplanes,” Steve says, sounding almost uncertain. Up close, Tony can see the red creeping up the back of his neck and onto his cheeks. “Never flown like this though.”

“Not many people have the privilege of flying the Iron Man Express,” Tony says and rises into the sky slowly, watching Steve’s expression the whole while. It’s wonder, mixed with exhilaration, and childish glee all in one and it squeezes Tony's insides tight. “This time only, I’ll make an exception.”

Steve looks back at Tony, his whole face red now. “Oh. Er, thank you.”

“Yeah, but seriously, hold on tight. I don’t want to drop you midflight, that’d just be embarrassing. Come on, I’m going to show you how real flying is done. You’ll never look at air travel the same again.” 


End file.
